song

February 20 2012

Last Friday there was a lot of noise made about the AFL’s latest franchise, the Greater Western Sydney Giants new theme song:

Maybe it is a little cynical of me, but from listening to it, it seems that the AFL Marketing Department asked The Cat Empire’s Harry Angus (who wrote the song) for a song that sounded a little ‘middle eastern’, a little ‘exotic’, maybe a little ‘Greek’ in order to try and find an affinity with Western Sydney’s large ethnic community.

This wouldn’t be out-of-step with the AFL’s attempts to invent a sugar-coated tradition in the Rugby League stronghold – the signing of Israel Folau to attract the Pacific Community to the game, the choice of team colours to mimic the most popular League team in the region, as well as Giant’s coach Kevin Sheedy bizarre claim early last year that Western Sydney was the true birthplace of AFL in the 1850s, are examples of this.

The song has been criticised for sounding too much like Russian peasant dancing… i guess not too far off the mark.